Having recently invested in M-POS company Pawoon, Indonesia’s newest publicly-listed tech startup Distribusi Voucher Nusantara (DIVA) says it is actively looking into more deals and expects to seal at least one more investment this year in order to expand its variety of use cases.
“(There will be) At least one. Because we want to run fast and we will try to find use cases that will create stickiness. We are not saying that it is for certain, but hopefully, we will have one this year,” said DIVA director Stanley Tjiandra.
DIVA provides a unified multi-payment device called DIVA Smart Outlet (OS) that can process various cash and non-cash payments at points of sale (POS) as well as an AI-empowered integrated messaging platform called DIVA IIM, which rides on popular applications such as WhatsApp, LINE, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger.
The company raised over Rp 630 billion ($45 million) in its November 2018 IPO and was quick to follow it up with a strategic investment in Pawoon, acquiring 30 per cent stake in the startup to “accelerate exponential growth.”
Prior to that, the company had also formed a joint venture with local travel agency Smailing Tours to establish a travel company called Surprise Indonesia, which enables it to offer product-bundle/cross-sell digital products.
These investments provide DIVA with use cases for its technology – something it will continue to look for in its future investments.
For DIVA, the decision to use investments as a tool for expansion is something it has learned from its parent company Kresna Graha Investama, an investment firm which has previously taken two other tech startups to IPO.
“If we don’t invest, we can build it ourselves, but it will come at an expense. The DNA at Kresna is that we try to avoid cash-burning strategy. We rely more on natural use cases. This is important because we are a public company, which means we cannot be making losses. Its different for private companies – they are more flexible,” Tjiandra said.
